Assistive Interaction Design for Early Phase Satellite Assembly in Immersive Augmented Reality

Abstract

Planning a spacecraft mission is an intricate process, requiring expertise in a variety of domains. Space agencies use specially built Concurrent Engineering Facilities (CEF) to conduct the design studies for missions. Recently, AR-basedimmersive environments have been proposed for the early phase assembly of satellites in CEFs. Assistive interactions can support the design process and facilitate better user interactions in such environments.In this thesis, we explore assistive interactions for early phase satellite assembly in immersive augmented reality environments. We identify the key requirements for assistive interactions for early phase satellite assembly. Based on our observations, we propose an intelligent AR-based interface for early phase satellite assembly that could be used for visualizing, planning, and reconfiguring early phase satellite designs. Our system uses simulation optimization to automatically calculate the configurations from the user-specified mission requirements and assists the user in completing the assembly by providing intelligent suggestions. We empirically evaluate the intelligent suggestions of our system and discuss the findings. Our work shows that intelligent interactions that assist the user in performing the assembly can result in enhanced usability and could be a valuable addition in AR-based environments for virtual satellite assembly.